Chapter 8

When Iruini opened his eyes he saw…

Wait.

Where was he?

What was this place?

Why did his face hurt?

The Toa of Air shook his head, freeing himself from the clutches of unconsciousness that had claimed him. His weapons were nowhere to be seen and it felt like someone had been using his Kanohi to play kolhii. Reaching up, he felt a deep crack across the ridge of his mask. He reached into his mind for an explanation but it was like searching through fog.

The world around him was one of abstract geometry in disarray. Vague lines and angles, jutting and jagging. Dark blotches of black ichor obscured his vision, as though he had entered some space between worlds - or perhaps it was two worlds colliding?

Amidst the chaos of his memories, he was surrounded by silhouettes. They stood tall and severe, though none of them had any features and even their bodies were sketchy, almost see-through. Memories of events long-since passed now bled into view. The details were blurry. It was the ghost of a place he had once been only half-recalled.

Iruini clenched his jaw and felt a small anger flare up in his chest, sensing the presence of another consciousness brushing against his own. Over the course of his life, his mind had been the one thing he’d always been able to control, the only thing that had been entirely his. A memory of battling Dark Hunters with Norik faded then stitched itself back together, like shapeless liquid protodermis filling a container.

“Whatever mind games you’re playing won’t work on me,” huffed the Toa, rolling into a crouch and conjuring a gust of wind to dissipate the illusion. “Now show yourself. And on behalf of everyone already wearing gold armor, find yourself another color!”

An illusion that had depicted some of Iruini’s earliest memories as a Le-Matoran suddenly faded, revealing the gargantuan form of the golden warlord. From tooth to toe he bore no armor, only a collection of golden scales that would give even the Kanohi Dragon cause for envy. Standing at twelve feet in height, he dwarfed most Makuta though he shared more in common with the denizens of Destral than any other species Iruini had encountered. Still, it seemed he possessed the devilish grin of a Skakdi, the reptilian eyes of a Zyglak, the musculature of a Steltian laborer and the cunning physique of a Vortixx all rolled into one.

“Your will is stronger than most, Toa Iruini,” purred the golden abomination. “Most… intriguing. You resist my charm like no being ever has. Almost as though—”

“Shut up, you overgrown tooth filling,” the Toa shot back, watching the grotesque golden smile waver for an instant. He wondered if this entity had ever been interrupted in the course of his short life.

Feeling psychic tendrils wrap around him, the Toa Hagah struggled to remain free of the golden entity’s influence. He was all too familiar with the Makuta’s twisted illusions, but for some reason whatever hold the golden warlord had over him couldn’t seem to stick. The world around him was morphing into various shifting tableaus - forgotten snapshots of a life he’d already lived. But they felt incomplete. The walls of the vision were like smoke held by invisible boundaries.

“I always was the luckiest Ghekula,” he quipped, reaching out to touch a tender memory of the Toa Hordika and watching ripples form on its ghostly surface.

Golden lips parted into a smile, but there was nothing warm about it.

Iruini allowed his mind to wade back into recent memories. Not too long ago, he and his teammates had been caught under the sway of the Makuta’s hypnotic power, trapped in a powerful illusion where they had defeated their adversary on the cusp of his greatest victory. It had taken months for them to finally break free of the dream only to find themselves in the nightmarish reality where he had succeeded in his grand scheme and conquered the universe. Even then their freedom had only been granted in a rare exercise of mercy from a monstrous tentacled entity more ancient and terrifying than Destal’s most archaic mutation chambers.

Perhaps some flickering remnant of Tren Krom’s power lingered within him even now, warding off the influence of the golden warlord…

“So what happens next?” snapped Iruini, throwing up his arms in frustration. “Your spell won’t work on me but at least I finally have your attention. What do you want? What will it take to get the Toa Mahri free from your influence?”

The shimmering warlord stared into the void, his expression withdrawn.

“What do I want indeed…” he pondered, features growing sour. “I want that precious currency you Toa indulge in that cannot be counted or bartered. I want that which rounds your little lives with sleep. Do you know what it is?”

Iruini stared blankly at the golden figure, inviting him to elaborate. His glistening form reminded Iruini all too well of the polished Protosteel once worn by the Makuta. When no further explanation came he wagered a guess.

“Destiny?”

“No, Toa,” grinned the golden being as his features became green with avarice. “I want your dreams!”

As he spoke, the walls of the world fell away, muscled aside by a half-imagined landscape cast in shadows and harsh lights, shrouded in twilight and smog. The Toa found himself tumbling through a vortex of ghostly memories.

“The dreams of Toa,” continued the golden atrocity, wrenching Iruini’s perspective as though his mind were loose flax. “So worthy and righteous - your tales of squandered potential and guilt make for rich fantasy. Far more tangible than the nightmares born of my Skakdi followers. And you, Iruini, with your rage and bluster and ambition… I could swim in your darkest desires for years to come…”

As he tumbled through the spiral of fractured illusions, Iruini found himself giving shape to the world around him. Crashing through familiar scenes on Spherus Magna, Nynrah, Odina, Metru Nui, Destral, he saw lines that might have been trunks of trees, sheer angles that might have been Visorak webs, silhouettes that might have been old friends, but all abstracted and simplified. A maelstrom of old and impenetrable shadows.

The golden tyrant couldn’t make a vision stick, so now he was hitting Iruini with an empty psychic canvas to fill in the blanks himself… and it was working.

He was sinking through a tunnel of ghoulish shapes, falling helplessly into a pit lined with the broiling bodies of Matoran he’d failed to protect in his lifetime. In the dim and distant glow of a dying light, he could see that the phantoms were his teammates, caught midway in their mutation between Toa and Rahaga, twisted and gnarled. They coiled around him, joints bent in the wrong direction, moaning through gaping and wordless mouths, pressing him down, deeper into the churning cauldron of darkness and screams.

They clawed at him. They blamed him. This was all his fault!

“So you’ve been feeding off the dreams of the Toa Mahri?” yelled the Toa of Air, fighting off the fragmented specter of Gaaki as she reached for him amidst the wave of half-dreamt memories. “Hitting them with illusion after illusion - baiting them into dreaming up your next conquest? Well I wish for them to be free from you! Haven’t they been through enough?”

“Do not linger on my disciples too long,” came the amorphous answer, echoing through the gaping mouths of his teammates. “They have come before me already and given voice to their secret longings. Alas, they sought only to bury themselves in simpler times and dull the loss of their fallen comrade. The Toa Mahri all eventually wound up desiring that which I cannot restore…”

“Not exactly selling yourself,” goaded the Toa, booting the gnarled fingertips of a shadowy Pouks. “What makes you think you’ll enjoy any better luck with me? You can’t even fix me in a decent illusion!”

“This is a vision of your own making, Iruini,” chided the voice, this time through the mouth of Kualus. “What do you want? What does a Toa unshackled by such anger yearn for in his darkest moments? What delicious, unanswered wishes lurk within your soul?”

“I wish for someone who eats dreams for breakfast to come knocking on your door!”

The golden entity’s smile grew thin. The brilliant light that surrounded him dulled as the darkness rose up to meet him. It was suffocating.

“Relent to me!” he roared, his voice now coming from Norik’s misshapen Kanohi. “Cease your foolish resistance and open your mind to the possibilities! I could grant you any desire you yearn for with a wave of my hand! Why must you Toa be so endlessly stubborn?”

Against his better judgment, a thought did occur to Iruini in that instant. He tried to push it down but it resurfaced all too easily. As the misshapen forms of his teammates crawled across him, as the screams of the damned rose up to meet him, he knew only weakness.

“I wish…” he began.

He thought of brave Pouks and wise Kualus as they wrangled the Rahi Nui together. He had only been in their way. In fact, his reckless ambition to tame the beast himself had landed his teammates in serious trouble. What if things had been different and Kualus had been crushed while he had charged?

He thought of cautious Gaaki crafting her visions of the future and how easily he dismissed them. How easily he dismissed her. The Toa of Water had reached out to him many times over the years, but Iruini had never cared for her sympathy. He’d always been antagonistic and prickly whenever she approached him with kindness.

He thought of stoic Bomonga struggling to keep the peace. So steadfast and dependable and still so unwilling to see Iruini’s perspective. He was a champion of lost causes - a lover of unlovable Rahi - and still he didn’t understand what needed to be done. Had he forgotten how to make the hard choices? Or perhaps it was he who had never considered the gentle giant caught in the crossfires of every dispute.

“I wish that…”

He thought of valiant Norik, who had chased him down that fateful day when he quit the team. Conniving Norik who had barked orders at him ever since and sought to shackle him with a destiny he didn’t want. Crafty Norik, trying to press him to fit that same grim mold of Toa who had come before him, dismissing his tactics and refusing to take necessary risks.

He thought of his teammates when he had discovered them trapped in that cage, their empty eyes looking to him for salvation. The sacrifice he had made to protect the Avohkii all those years ago and how he would not have made the same decision twice.

He thought of the years of inaction wasted on Metru Nui, stalking the Visorak from afar, humbled by the limitations of his own body. Falling captive and used as a bargaining token in another Toa of Fire’s delusions of grandeur, as though his role in the world meant nothing more.

He thought of the years of his life spent in service to the very Makuta who had toppled the Great Spirit. The overwhelming shame of his complicity. The frustration that his teammates did not feel so culpable in the atrocities they had committed in the name of the Brotherhood.

“I wish… I didn’t have to be a Toa Hagah anymore.”

✴        ✴        ✴

“That’s it, Iruini’s off the team for good this time!” huffed Norik.

“Why… in the name of Mata Nui… didn’t you think to share this vision with the team?” asked Bomonga.

When no answer came to the Toa of Earth’s question, Norik fixed Gaaki with a dark glare. Whatever excuse came froze in the Toa of Water’s throat. Unable to meet his gaze, she lowered her head.

“I’m sorry, Norik,” she pleaded. “You know how my visions can be. Sometimes they turn out to be nothing–”

“You don’t get to make that call!”

“Easy, brother,” grunted Pouks, placing a firm hand on the Toa of Fire’s shoulder. “Vision or not, Iruini’s choices aren’t Gaaki’s fault.”

“Besides, he’s left us a helpful trail,” observed Kualus, still examining the unconscious Skakdi sentries strewn across the chamber floor. “We need to press on, while they’re still out cold. While we still have the element of–”

Without warning, eyebeams singed the wall of the chamber, followed by a series of Zakazian curses. Pouks and Bomonga threw up their shields and fired off a volley of Rhotuka at their attackers.

“Intruders!” barked the sentry who had spotted them. “Blast ’em to bits!”

“We can’t stay here,” yelled Gaaki, shifting her focus to the corridor ahead. “Too great a risk of being flanked. And we’re running out of time!”

Norik grimaced. It was time to accept that whatever advantage they had gained by sneaking about in the shadows was gone. There was still one advantage in their favor: the Skakdi cared a lot more about the fortress than they did.

“Pouks, make it rain!” he ordered.

With a grunt, the Toa of Stone tapped into his elemental reserves and commanded the ceiling to shatter. With an almighty crack, a deluge of mortar and structural debris came crashing down onto the sentries. Abruptly, the laserfire ceased.

It seemed no alarm had been raised and the footsoldiers hadn’t thought to call for backup. There was no reason to think the other Skakdi knew to expect them.

Not yet at least.

✴        ✴        ✴

Atop the walls of the outer fortress, sentries gathered their weapons and clamored to their posts. As they thundered about shouting orders at each other, one of their number froze in his tracks and gazed out towards the open ocean. In quick succession, his comrades noticed and turned to investigate as well.

“What in Irnakk’s name is that?”

“How should I know?”

A red light glimmered beneath the waves. At first, the guards thought it was an underwater craft or some strange new oceanic creature that inhabited the waters of this alien world. When it broke the surface, they found themselves staring at a radiant orb, which ascended from the waves into the air above. It lit up the night sky with a sickly crimson glow, as though it were a brooding sunrise. Those guards with x-ray vision leaned closer while the others cupped their hands to protect their eyes, each vying to be the first to report on the floating orb.

“I think there’s… someone inside that thing.”

“That’s ridiculous? It’s so small!”

“Who cares? Shoot it down!”

The warriors raised their weapons and began firing, for curiosity was not in their nature. Laser eye beams mixed with concussive streams of Plasma, Water, Stone and Sonics peppered the surface of the crimson orb, though they did nothing to slow its advance towards the fortress. In fact, it continued to expand as immense tendrils snaked from its mass. One by one, the Skakdi forces lowered their blasters. All around them, silhouettes of enemy combatants appeared within the fortress walls.

“I hate this planet!” growled one of the Skakdi, watching in horror as the monstrous crimson entity glided over the fortress walls, flanked by her army of shadow Toa.

Annona had arrived.

✴        ✴        ✴

Without warning, Bomonga’s pace slowed.

“I sense something ahead,” he murmured, brow knotting in concentration. “A pulse vibrating through the walls. But it’s… unlike any tremor I’ve felt before.”

“I’m picking it up too,” said Gaaki, her mask glowing. “Something is coming… riding on crimson waves in the sky above. A red star with vast tentacles. A stealer of dreams with an ancient hunger.”

“Whatever it is, it’s coming in hot,” yelled Bomonga, suddenly pressing both hands against the walls of the corridor. “Brace yourselves!”

An instant later, the ground beneath their feet shook and the fortress lurched from a great tremor. Pouks slammed his feet into the ground, riding the shockwave out as though he were surfing. The others weren’t quick enough to react and were thrown by the earthquake.

“Maybe we give you the Mask of Clairvoyance next time,” grumbled Norik. He picked himself off the ground and turned to his sister-Toa only to discover her expression was one of pure terror.

“We need to get out of here!” she babbled, stumbling to her feet and beckoning her brothers down the corridor.

As the dust settled, the five Toa ran through the passageway. At last they reached a staircase leading up to the fortress’ keep and out into an open promenade. Whatever Skakdi soldiers remained were locked in personal illusions, fighting off a swarm of imaginary foes.

Staggering out into the central courtyard, they ground to a halt, now finally seeing the scarlet mass looming in the sky above the fortress.

“So much for stealth,” said Pouks, pounding his fists together and making no attempt to hide the grin that spread across his features.

“Is that… the red star?” asked Kualus, shielding his eyes from its intensity. “I’m no seer, but it seems a little close tonight.”

“I guess it’s Gaaki’s stealer of dreams come searching for a midnight snack,” said Bomonga. “Maybe we can use this to our advantage. Break Jaller and the others out while the Skakdi are distracted.”

The Toa of Earth took a step closer to the fortress’ tower only to have his armor singed by a wall of flame. Whirling around, he saw the outlines of the Toa Mahri emerging from the shadows of the keep, their forms bathed in crimson glow and their weapons drawn.

“First the Piraka, then the Barraki, and now at the end of the line you Toa Hagah stand against us,” challenged Hahli, her wings unfolding. “Seems a Doom Viper can take many shapes these days.”

To accentuate his sister’s point, Nuparu threw two long objects onto the ground between them. In the flickering lights, the Toa couldn’t make them out at first, until an explosion outside the sanctum illuminated the two pieces of Iruini’s broken Cyclone Spear.

As the revelation dawned on him, Norik’s expression was one of thunder.

Tension gradually mounted, as an unspoken rivalry months in the making now reached its boiling point. Although the two teams were standing together, there now spanned a divide that neither side wished to close.

“So where does this go from here?” asked Kualus, steel in his voice.

“Nowhere good.”

Pouks shifted his stance only to see Nuparu matching his movements, Protosteel Shield unclipped.

“We’re through taking orders,” bristled Jaller, brandishing his Power Sword. “From you and all the Toa that came after you…”